Mistress by Midnight (33 page)

W
hen James woke up, Beatrix was sitting in the chair again, only this time she was dressed and looking rather grim. “They said you wanted to see me.”

“So,” he said, cocky. “I was right. But no Gypsies were involved.”

“You are insufferable. How can you joke about such a thing? My whole life is ruined!”

“Don’t be such a girl.” He caught the feral gleam in her eye and retrenched a bit. “You’ve never shut up about how beastly those Cornwall people are to you.”

“That’s because all you did was complain about your father! I was only complaining in sympathy!”

James shook his head. He was still feeling woozy and the movement did not help matters. “You know that’s not true. As I understand it, you’ll just be my father’s ward. Nobody ever needs to know the precise circumstances of your birth. I won’t tell. I don’t even want a sister.”

“And I don’t want you for a brother, you rude little pig! You are arrogant and diabolical and … and….”

Good. She seemed to be at a loss for words, an extremely rare occurrence. She had given him a headache for two weeks with all her talk. But he did like her, and felt sorry for her. Her secret was worse than his secret, at least in society’s eyes. Everybody’s parents married for money and hated each
other. All his mates at school said so. He supposed growing up in a cold marriage with people fighting was much worse than growing up with a mother who loved him, and gave him everything, and an absent father who was making up for lost time now. When he was allowed out of bed, James planned to ask for a horse of his own, not a babyish pony, and he had every expectation of Conover caving into him.
Caving.
An unfortunate choice of words. He shivered.

“Look. I know just how you feel, but don’t go running off. They’ve had enough excitement for one holiday.”

“I won’t run away. I have more sense than you.”

He’d like to wipe that smirk off her face, but a gentleman never hit a lady, no matter how provoked. He was pretty sure that applied to sisters, too, or his father would think it did.

“I didn’t run away. I went off to think. There’s a difference.” He shifted his pillows.

“And what conclusion did you come to, Socrates?” she sneered.

James looked her straight in the eye. “I fell in that hole and thought I would die. Then it didn’t matter so much what happened a dozen years ago.”

That
shut her up for a while. But his luck didn’t hold.

“Everything we thought we knew was a lie.”

“They lied to protect us. And themselves, too. They’re not perfect. Laurette said something interesting to me before my father came. She said she could never think that she had made a mistake with him, because she couldn’t think of you as a mistake. She loves you a lot, Bea.”

“I don’t know what to do.” Her voice was snuffly. Damn it, she was crying again. But he had cried himself quite recently, and much more vigorously, so it wasn’t fair to tease her this time.

“You don’t have to do anything. Go back to that poky little house in Penzance. Go back to school. Come to Dorset for a few weeks next summer.”

“You really
don’t
want me as your secret sister.”

“I just said that. I didn’t really mean it. I suppose if my father and Laurette get married, there might be another sister, although I’d prefer a brother.”

“James! They’re too old.”

James gave her a scornful look. “Do they teach you nothing at your school? I could draw you a picture—”

“You are disgusting!”

He grinned at the compliment. Beatrix promised to be a thorn in his side for the foreseeable future. He could almost guarantee it.

Con sat rigid in a threadbare chair in the mean little parlor counting to one hundred. He wondered what these people had done with all the money they had received for Beatrix’s upkeep over the years. There was no evidence of it anywhere, from his chipped teacup to the battered old doll Bea had shyly shown him. He got all the way up to eighty-seven when he stood up abruptly and walked out into the busy street. Perhaps he was a coward for leaving the girls he loved to manage without him, but if he stayed inside, he would commit murder and they’d have to do without him permanently.

He walked to the quay, a blast of briny sea air clearing his head. He had his son to thank for Bea’s decision to throw her lot in with the Conover clan. She had been closeted with James that Monday afternoon for hours. When she emerged, she was pale but resolute. She would consent to Con’s guardianship if the Vincents agreed to it. When Con asked his son what had transpired, the boy had merely shrugged and said they played a game of cards. And that he’d won. Con hated to think that Bea’s future had depended upon a game of chance, but he was grateful nonetheless.

He couldn’t endure one more minute with Jonas and Mary Vincent. Beatrix had gone up to pack her meager belongings, so was spared the hypocritical proselytizing. While pleased by a lifetime income far exceeding any amount they had ever dreamed, they were nevertheless vocal in their disapproval of
the upcoming nuptials. In their opinion, those who had sinned deserved no happiness. All their hard work with Beatrix would be undone.

But he disagreed wholeheartedly. The sooner he could get her away from these grasping, heart-shriveled zealots, the happier he’d be. In less than an hour they would be on the road again, back to his sheep farm and a wedding. They would return to Ryland Grove when Laurette was ready. If she was not accepted as his marchioness, he was prepared to live somewhere where she was.

The children would keep to their school schedules no matter what happened. As hard as he’d considered hiring a tutor and a governess for the Grove, James and Beatrix could fight as though they’d been siblings all their lives. There would be no peace for the Conovers if they lived together year-round.

Things were not exactly how he planned, but they were good enough and would get better. Or worse. He laughed out loud, pushing his wind-blown hair from his face. Each day with Laurette was a gift he didn’t deserve.

Guilty, he retraced his steps to the door of the dreaded cousins to rescue his girls.

V
ery early on the morning of her wedding day, Laurette crept down the long hallway from Con’s room, avoiding the squeaky spot right before the landing. This was her last time to sneak around, although perhaps everyone knew where she’d spent her nights anyway. She’d had a ghastly “birds and bees” talk the other day with her daughter, who was being cheerfully corrupted by her mischievous halfbrother. James reminded her so much of Con at that age that it brought a smile to her face.

But today was a day for seriousness. She was to be married to the man she’d loved most of her life. Turning the door handle of her room, she entered the dim chamber and opened the curtain to let in the dawn. What she saw spread on her bed stunned her.

There was her wedding dress, not the yellow confection she’d planned to wear, but the stiff midnight-blue satin gown covered with moons and stars she had worn at seventeen at the standing stones.

“Sadie, what else does Mama have in her trunks in the attic?”

Mrs. Miller took the knife out of Laurette’s clumsy hand. “There’ll be nothing left to eat if you keep that up. Just sit still and do your talking.”

“Well?” Laurette prompted.

Sadie screwed up her face. “There’s nothing fit up there for a young miss.”

“Excellent. Let’s go upstairs. Mrs. Miller, you are done with us, are you not?”

The cook sighed in defeat. “Go on, then. You won’t stop plaguing us until you get your way, and you murdered that carrot.”

Laurette pulled Sadie up the back stairs to the top floor, throwing open the door to the attic. Pails and pans were placed strategically across the slanted wood floors in case of rain. The smell of heat and dust and mice was overwhelming. Sadie sneezed.

“Just tell me which trunk it’s in and we’ll go right down to my room.”

“Don’t know as I recollect.”

“Pshaw. You were just up here.”

“The dress I’m thinking of belonged to your great-aunt, not your mother. Might be in the black trunk in that corner.”

Laurette darted between the containers and the mouse droppings and lifted the lid. Beneath a layer of linen sheeting was the most exquisite midnight blue dress she had ever seen, trimmed in tarnished silver lace, embroidered with silver threads and beads and spangles, tiny glimmering moons and stars scattered across the fabric. Yards and yards of fabric, the skirts gathered up with silver ribbons to reveal more graying silver lace. This gown was very old. But gorgeous.

Laurette brought it downstairs to a patch of sunshine, loose stars and moons and circles sparkling in her hand. She tucked them into the apron pocket and fetched her sewing box. It took her some time to unravel a spool of dark blue thread, not quite a match but close enough. Silver thread would be better, but she knew none was to be had at the village shop.

Carefully, she swept her hand over the front of the gown, discovering what held fast and what was relentlessly determined to detach. She threaded her needle and anchored the
strands of silver back into the gown at tight long intervals. No doubt Sadie would have unstrung and restrung every single bead, but they did not have time for that. It was tedious work, but the end result would be worth it, stabbed fingers and all.

Sadie would have to do the rest. Laurette sucked on her injured thumb, imagining the look on Con’s face when he saw her walk through the flowered archway to the little ballroom at the Blue Calf Inn. If he thought to keep resisting her, he was mistaken. This dress was pure magic.

And its magic had worked, just not in the way Laurette expected. She had worn it twice—to her debut and her secret wedding to Con. But she’d need some of its magic this morning—she doubted very much she could get into it. She was no longer the slender girl she’d been, and the new baby growing inside her had thickened her waist and plumped her breasts to the point that even Con had noticed. He was pleased, thinking she was finally eating more.

She hadn’t told him yet. That would be her wedding gift to him tonight. She didn’t think he’d mind that she had kept this secret to herself for a few days. But there were to be no more secrets between Lord and Lady Conover.

She turned the dress over and saw that Sadie, blessed Sadie, had added a panel of almost-matching fabric, with tiny tarnished beads stitched over it. Laurette remembered the little muslin bag Con had carried with him everywhere and closed her eyes.

Con had thought of everything to surprise her, even, she saw, a hat with blue and silver ribbons and silver slippers. But she had a surprise for him too, and hers was better.

“M
an up’ for God’s sake, and drop the damn thing.”

“We’re not sending in nude shots,” Roan replied with an even smile, as the chants and taunts escalated. “So I don’t understand the need to take things to such an extreme—”

“The contest rules state, very clearly, that they’re looking for provocative,” Tessa responded, sounding every bit like a person who’d also been forced into a task she’d rather not have taken on—which she had been.

Sadly, that fact had not brought them closer.

She shifted to another camera she’d mounted on another tripod, he supposed so the angle of the sun was more to her liking. “Okay, lean back against the stone wall, prop one leg, rest that… sword thing of yours—”

“‘Tis a claymore. Belonged to the McAuleys for four centuries. Victorious in battle, ‘tis an icon of our clan.” And heavy as all hell to hoist about.

“Lovely. Prop your icon in front of you, then. I’m fairly certain it will hide what needs hiding.”

His eyebrows lifted at that, but rather than take offense, he merely grinned. “I wouldnae be so certain of it, lassie. We’re a clan known for the size of our … swords.”

“Yippee,” she shot back, clearly unimpressed. “So, drop the plaid, position your … sword, and let’s get on with it. It’s
the illusion of baring it all we’re going for here. I’ll make sure to preserve your fragile modesty.”

She was no fun. No fun ‘tall.

“The other guys did it,” she added, resting folded hands on top of the camera. “In fact,” she went on, without even the merest hint of a smile or dry amusement, “they seemed quite happy to accommodate me.”

He couldn’t imagine any man wanting to bare his privates for Miss Vandergriff’s pleasure. Not if he wanted to keep them intact, at any rate.

He was a bit thrown off by his complete inability to charm her. He charmed everyone. It was what he did. He admittedly enjoyed, quite unabashedly, being one of the clan favorites because of his affable, jovial nature. As far as he was concerned, the world would be a much better place if folks could get in touch with their happy parts, and stay there.

He didn’t know much about her, but from what little time they’d spent together that afternoon, he didn’t think Tessa Vandergriff had any happy parts. However, the reason behind her being rather happiness-challenged wasn’t his mystery to solve. She’d been on the island for less than a week. Her stay on Kinloch was as a guest, and therefore temporary. Thank the Lord.

The island faced its fair share of ongoing trials and tribulations, and had the constant challenge of sustaining a fragile economic resource. Despite that, he’d always considered both the McAuley and MacLeod clans as being cheerful, welcoming hosts. But they had enough to deal with without adopting a surly recalcitrant into their midst.

“Well,” he said, smiling broadly the more her scowl deepened. “‘Tis true, the single men of this island have little enough to choose from.” The crowd took a collective breath at that, but his attention was fully on her. Gripping the claymore in one fist, he leaned against the stacked stone wall, well aware of the tableau created by the twin peaks that framed the MacLeod fortress, each of them towering behind
him. He braced his legs, folded his arms across his bare chest, sword blade aloft … and looked her straight in the eye as he let a slow, knowing grin slide across his face. “Me, I’m no’ so desperate as all that.”